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Soft flour tortillas

Tortillas, either made from wheat flour or cornmeal, are the basic bread that accompanies almost every meal in Mexico. These flour tortillas are easy to make and they have a multitude of uses – serve with meals in place of bread, make wraps with sandwich fillings, or roll round a savoury mixture, sprinkle with cheese and bake.

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Ingredients
Serves: 10

225 g (8 oz) plain flour

55 g (2 oz) lard, cut into small pieces

1 tsp salt

120 ml (4 fl oz) hand-hot water

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MethodPrep:1hr25min › Cook:10min › Ready in:1hr35min

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl. Add the lard and rub it in with your fingertips until thoroughly incorporated. Stir in the salt, then add the water and stir well to form a smooth dough.

Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead for 2–3 minutes. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for about 1 hour.

Divide the dough into 10 pieces and shape each one into a ball. Roll out each ball on the lightly floured surface, keeping an even round shape, to make a paper-thin disc about 15 cm (6 in) in diameter. As they are rolled, stack them up, interleaved with sheets of greaseproof paper.

Heat a griddle or cast-iron frying pan over a moderate heat until very hot. Cook the tortillas, one or two at a time (depending on the size of your pan), for 20–30 seconds on each side or until bubbles appear on the surface and they are lightly browned. As the tortillas are cooked, stack them up on a plate and keep covered with a clean tea-towel. Serve warm, preferably straight from the griddle.

Each slice provides

B1

Some more ideas

To reheat leftover tortillas for serving, wrap the stack in foil and put into a preheated 180ºC (350ºF, gas mark 4) oven for 10–15 minutes. Alternatively, they can be heated individually on a moderately hot griddle for 10–15 seconds on each side. * For heartier tortillas, replace half the white flour with wholemeal flour. * For spicy tortillas, add typical Mexican spices, such as a pinch each of ground cumin, coriander and cinnamon, to the flour.

Plus points

Lard, which is rendered pure pork fat, is a traditional ingredient in tortillas. It has an unhealthy image, but weight for weight, lard contains less saturated fat than butter. In 100 g (3½ oz) lard the total fat content is 99 g, of which 40 g is saturated; in the same weight of butter, total fat is 81 g of which 54 g is saturated.